Welcome to the Harvard Lunch Club Political Podcast for September 19, 2017 it’s the #AmnestyDon does DACA edition of the show with your hosts Todd Feinburg, Boston/Hartford axis radio talk show host and Mike Stopa, nanophysicist. This week on the show we discuss amnesty – amnesty for “Dreamers” – those poor kids who, through no fault of their own were dragged to America as children and who have known no other country but America. It would be cruel, wouldn’t it, to take out their parents’ sins on the kids? Really, we’re going to just put them on a bus or a plane and send them back to a country they hardly even know? Really?

Yes, you know. This is the new Trump ideology. This is Rick Perry’s heart and Jeb Bush’s love. This is exactly what caused a major section of the Republican Party and otherwise conservative folks to abandon the GOPe. This is giving sympathy to the law breakers and forgetting the once forgotten then briefly remembered and then forgotten again American people who have borne the brunt of the illegal onslaught and who don’t feel an ounce of that sympathy. This is the kind of thing that leads to burning MAGA hats.

Becoming a papal biographer will change your life–or so it seems, judging from George Weigel‘s Lessons in Hope: My Unexpected Life with St. John Paul II.

In a 10-minute conversation with The Bookmonger, Weigel defends his claim that the late pope was “the emblematic figure of the second half of the 20th century,” and suggests what he might say to Americans in 2017, if he could give one more homily.

This week, Larry Kudlow sits in the Long Chair ® as the President and his new BFF’s Chuck and Nancy strike a deal over dinner, Heritage’s Steve Moore on the administration’s tax plan and Tevi Troy on how the President did on Storm Watch ’17.

The intro song is “Ran” by Future Islands. Stephen’s song of the week is “Day I Die” by The National and Jon’s is “Green Eyes” by Hüsker Dü (RIP Grant Hart). To listen to all the music featured on The Conservatarians, subscribe to our Spotify playlist.

Jim Geraghty of National Review and Greg Corombos of Radio America react to President Trump making a deal with Democratic leaders to enact DACA into law in exchange for “massive border security” that has yet to be defined. They also sigh as the Trump administration continues sanctions relief for Iran in conjunction with the nuclear deal it still hasn’t scrapped. And they slam the White House for suggesting ESPN anchor Jemele Hill ought to fired for tweeting that Trump is a white supremacist while also blasting Hill and ESPN for their aggressively extreme politics.

George F. Will, for many people, has long been a conservative’s conservative. The very model of a conservative. Today, however, many people don’t think of him as a conservative at all. Sean Hannity, Steve Bannon, or Donald Trump, yes. George Will, no.

Jay takes up this strange question with his guest. In addition to “conservative,” Jay asks Will about some other words and phrases, including “America First” and “deep state.” They further talk about the Confederacy and its monuments. And North Korea. And Afghanistan. And, to close, baseball.

Jim Geraghty of National Review and Greg Corombos of Radio America cheer U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley for leading another round of sanctions aimed at North Korea in response to another nuclear test. They also groan as the Democrat running for governor in Virginia implies that voting her him will give kids there a better chance for success and Jim slams any politician who promises that electing them will solve everyone’s problems. And they discuss Jim Carrey’s on-air castigation of New York Fashion Week as meaningless, leading Jim to reveal tales of how the recent National Review cruise shared the ship with a lot of people connected to this superficial event.

Was he a kind man who did his best for Russia or a reactionary tyrant who despised the Russian people? Robert Service takes on both of these questions in The Last of the Tsars: Nicholas II and the Russian Revolution.

In a 10-minute conversation with The Bookmonger, Service describes the revolution of 1917 as well as the execution of Nicholas and his family in 1918. He also addresses rumors that members of the Romanov family may have survived and what Americans in 2017 can learn about Russia today from its history.

Mona and Jay had not talked to each other in a while — she had been moving, he had been traveling — so they have some catching up to do. They talk about “dreamers” and immigration. They talk about Trump and “Chuck ‘n’ Nancy.” They talk about the Koreas. They talk about Joe Biden (!). About New Jersey (Mona’s native state). About the Confederacy and the ongoing war over monuments. About many things.

Why did the West grow rich in the 18th century after thousands of years of nearly zero economic growth? Joel Mokyr, an economic historian at Northwestern University, contends that it was the culture in Western Europe that sparked the Great Enrichment.

Joel Mokyr is the author of the recent book, A Culture of Growth: The Origins of the Modern Economy. He joins me on the podcast to discuss his argument, what the lessons of economic history can teach us about the future of innovation, and whether the techno-optimists or -pessimists are right about the future.

Welcome to the Harvard Lunch Club Political Podcast for August 29, 2017, it’s the Loving Trump’s Hate edition of the show, with your hosts Todd Feinburg, radio talk show host; and Mike Stopa, nanophysicist extraordinaire. This week, our special guest is Washington Examiner writer Emily Jashinsky who will tell us about all the slimy things you ever wanted to knowabout the Southern Poverty Law Center, that lovely group of self-absorbed, utterly humorless social justice fanatics. Please drop us a comment on Ricochet if only to welcome Emily to her first time on the show.

Next, we will talk about the things that Donald Trump hates. What really makes him angry (as opposed to the things where he thinks he is supposed to be angry)??? Yes, the media! Yes, CNN! Anything else? What makes him so engaging when he is out there punching away at the bad guys? Or do you think he is engaging? We will analyze.

Marriage is one of society’s oldest institutions, and research suggests its importance hasn’t faded with time. Here to discuss the numerous benefits of marriage, as well as its role in the “Millennial Success Sequence,” is Dr. W. Bradford Wilcox.

Jay and Mona talk of Nazis – neo and old (Jay is in Salzburg), how the Republican Party has now managed to take on the Democrats’ past sins, nuclear brinksmanship, and whether Trump’s churning staff changes will make a difference.

Welcome to the Harvard Lunch Club Political Podcast for August 11, 2017 it’s the Vive La Difference edition of the podcast with your hosts, nanoscientist Mike Stopa, and, would you believe it? co-host and Smart Girl Extraordinaire Teri Christoph! But then, where’s Todd??? Wish we knew. He is off on a soul-finding three month journey of non-stop silence in the Peruvian jungle, on a diet of roasted banana peels and tropical bird sushi. We expect him back next week.

In the meantime, Mike and Teri get to bubble our way through topics ludicrous and absurd for your listening pleasure. Look, the vibe is a little different than usual. I, for one, had a fabulous time.

This week, our good pal Larry Kudlow sits in for the making-tv-great-again Rob Long. We’ve also got Henry Olsen, author of The Working Class Republican: Ronald Reagan and the Return of Blue-Collar Conservatism who tell us what why Reagan’s greatest influence may have been Franklin Roosevelt, how The Great Communicator would’ve come down on the health care debate, and supposes who would have won in a Trump-Reagan electoral contest. Later, Mr. Immigration Mickey Kaus stops by to school us on why the Emma Lazarus poem isn’t policy and what the media gets wrong over and over about this contentious issue. We also talk about the good economic news, and the tight ship John Kelly is running at the White House.

The US economy appears to be stuck at around 2% GDP growth, much less than the 3.5% it has averaged between World War II and the Great Recession. One reason is that productivity growth – that is, output per worker — is barely rising. Why is the American economy apparently not as productive as it used to be? Are we, despite tech giants such as Apple and Google, somehow less innovative than in the past? If so, why are we so worried about robots taking our jobs?

To help us answer those questions and others, I’m delighted to have as my guest today Bret Swanson, an AEI visiting fellow and president of Entropy Economics, a strategic research firm specializing in technology, innovation, and the global economy. Bret is the co-author of the recent report, “The Coming Productivity Boom,” and he joins us today to discuss why he thinks much higher productivity growth is just around the corner.

Jim Geraghty of the National Review and Greg Corombos of Radio America applaud Claremont McKenna College in California for defending free speech rights and punishing students who attempted to prevent a guest from speaking on campus. Reports claim that President Donald Trump has asked for specifics on his powers to pardon aides, family members, and even himself, leading Jim to ask when the president will stop making life more difficult for himself and allow the investigation to run its course. They call into question the genuinenss of OJ Simpson’s contrition after he was granted parole on Thursday and Jim makes a bold prediction about OJ’s future.

The President is on the record, the WSJ’s Bill McGurn talks about Charlie Gard, The Washington Post’s Bob Costa on the mood in DC, @Lileks ponders Russian history, Long wonders who’s going to get fired, and Robinson has one last question. Or three.